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Clint Eastwood could do no wrong in the early Nineties.

Hot on the heels of Unforgiven, he teamed up with The Perfect Storm director Wolfgang Petersen for one of the best thrillers of the decade - In the Line of Fire.

Imagine a cross between The Day of the Jackal and The Bodyguard and you get the idea.

Hollywood's craggiest leading man plays Frank Horrigan, a troubled bodyguard assigned to protect the US president against a psychopathic assassin.

John Malkovich delivers a stunning performance as the man on the end of the trigger and acclaimed German director Petersen directs with such skill, Eastwood even asked his advice when he came to direct A Perfect World.

Clint was 63 when he made this and brought a lifetime of experience to the role of a world weary Secret Service agent haunted by the fact he failed to save President Kennedy from the fatal bullet.

The clever use of a doctored photo by Hollywood whiz kids shows the actor/director stood at the side of JFK. A nice touch which is well worth looking out for.

To be honest, ITLOF is a cliched thriller, the sort of story which crops up most weeks as a glossy, no brain offering on Channel 5.

However, both director and stars took the well worn material and gave it a fresh spin, upping the tension several notches with each passing scene, resulting in a spectacular finale which is great value for money.

Rene Russo is so good she could play the part in her sleep. The former model adds a degree of mature charm to her role of an agent who Horrigan believes is mere `window dressing' for the department.

As with all of Wolfgang's movies, believability is everything. A rare degree of authenticity was achieved during the crowd scenes when the German film-maker integrated his fictitious President with the crowds from the Clinton and Bush election campaign.

The cost? A cool $4million.

The script had been knocking around Hollywood for a decade before it was dusted down and given a green light. It was originally to star Dustin Hoffman (who signed up for Petersen's follow up, Outbreak).

British director Michael Apted (The World is Not Enough) was due to direct the Hoffman version, but when David Puttnam took over as the head of Columbia in 1987, the movie was put on hold.

Producer Jeff Apple (a man more known in the trade for his interactive shopping shows than films) brought in Jeff Maguire to polish up the script.

The idea of Horrigan as an agent who failed to stop JFK's untimely death gave the movie a twist that Hollywood execs found delicious.

Before long, there was a feeding frenzy over the new, improved script and eventually, Rob Reiner's Castle Rock company snapped it up for a million dollars with Clint Eastwood on board.

Petersen had wanted Harrison Ford, but eventually cast him as the President in Air Force One (which you may remember was the film of the week a couple of weeks ago).

As any Clint fan knows, he's a jazz fan - a passion shared by Horrigan in what seemed to be a tailor made role adapted for old Mr Squinty after he signed on the dotted line.

However, Frank's love of piano and jazz was already on the page - a happy accident which helped turn Horrigan into one of Clint's most likeable big screen characters.

Top drawer stuff.

Back when I was working person, I remember having a really obnoxious client to deal with who insisted on making everything on a personal basis. I was telling him things that my agency could do and could not do and he firmly believed I was personally out to do him out of what was rightfully his. I swear but I was thinking of this guy as I watched John Malkovich and Clint Eastwood in their battle of wits.

In The Line Of Fire casts Clint Eastwood as a veteran Secret Service Agent who was on the job in Dallas as a young man when John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He's had his doubts ever since and been given to drink and his life at one time was a real shambles. He's gotten back on the White House detail now and when a potential assassin's landlady rats on her tenant to the Secret Service, it's Eastwood and partner Dylan McDermott who draw the case.

But the assassin is no ordinary crank case. He's a professional at his job, trained by and used by the Central Intelligence Agency. John Malkovich earned a deserved Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He lost that year to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive and I'm not sure, but that I thought Malkovich was better.

Oddly enough Malkovich might have been better off, but he saw Eastwood as the agent in charge breaking into his apartment while on the job and he insisted on making the whole thing personal. He calls Eastwood throughout the film and taunts him. And after a while what Malkovich says and does causes Clint to get real personal.

The presidential assassins we've had in our history have been lucky amateurs, unless you believe in some of the conspiracy theories about some of the assassinations. A guy like Malkovich, a professional with a real or imagined grudge, is the most dangerous kind of foe.

Others to note in the cast are Fred Dalton Thompson as the White House chief of staff (and would be president in real life), Rene Russo as another agent who falls for the Eastwood masculine charm, John Mahoney as the Secret Service head, Gary Cole as the White House head Secret Service guy, Gregory-Alan Williams as another agent and Jim Curley and Sally Hughes as the President and First Lady.

But when Malkovich is on he owns In The Line Of Fire. The climax with him and Eastwood is unforgettable.

"In the Line Of Fire" is an expertly crafted thriller that has a fantastic climax. The film starts building suspense a half hour into the movie and it doesn't let up until the final scene. Clint Eastwood does exceptional work as does John Malkovich as the villian, the rest of the cast turns in good performances as well. Director Wolfgang Peterson knows how to build suspense and he does it extremely well, he also directed another top notch suspense thriller "Air Force One."

In The Line of Fire gives us a great game of cat and mouse. Clint Eastwood is plagued by John Malkovich in this riveting film. Malkovich says he's going to kill the president, and he purposely calls Eastwood, and pushes his buttons. He questions Eastwood's ability to protect someone. Malkovich brings a cold, but very intelligent mindset to his character. Everything he does, he does for a reason, and he's not shy about killing. Eastwood has to overcome the suspicions of his superiors in order to catch Malkovich, but no one wants to listen to him. The result is a film that crackles with suspense that escalates to a tense scene in a ballroom at the Bonneventure Hotel. Wolfgang Peterson ratchets up the tension and we feel every turn.

Clint Eastwood is Frank Horrigan, a Secret Service agent haunted by his failure to react swiftly on the job when JFK was assassinated. We're meant to feel sympathy for him, I presume, but I felt none after this admission: "I could tell he was hit. I don't know why I didn't react. I should have reacted.... I just couldn't believe it."

Excuse me?? Horrigan's entire job, all his training and his sanctimonious talk, is geared to protecting the President, who gets volumes of death threats. But when an attack happens, Frank "couldn't believe it." Instead of Dallas being a wake-up call, telling him he's in the wrong line of work, he stubbornly stays on the job, ultimately becoming the insubordinate (read: antihero) old cuss we meet 30 years later.

He is also predatory, not only with his partner (Dylan McDermott), whom he begs and bullies to get what he wants, but with a colleague, Lily (Rene Russo), whose attraction to him can only be explained by the need for a love interest for Eastwood, who is even given jazz chops in this movie, lest we forget who we're watching and start thinking Frank is a fictional character. The movie could have been cut by twenty minutes, and been more amusing, if Lily had sparred rather than slept with him.

John Malkovich is memorable as Leary, the villain aiming to assassinate the current President, and Wolfgang Peterson and his able DP John Bailey capture him from every angle and plenty of close-ups. Leary's phone chats with Horrigan are riveting because of Leary's dialog, which actually generates anti-government sympathy: he was well-trained as a killer by the feds, and apparently well paid, too (he self-funds his assassination plot, once dropping $50G without batting an eye). Meanwhile, all Frank does during these calls is growl, threaten, and swear.

It's an intricately structured movie, cleverly manipulating the plot to deliver some very close encounters, including a rooftop death scene that is meaningfully filmed. The showdown scene in the glass elevator where Frank says "Aim high" works nicely, too, but the ending is standard nick-of-time Hollywood, triggered when Frank has a sudden insight into the when-and-where of Leary's plot.

It's a well-made film, start to finish, but seriously flawed by Frank's character, who they don't bother to make admirable or credible, let alone alluring. Just never let us forget that he's Clint Eastwood.